Popular Articles

World MRSA Day Momentum Builds In The US And The UK
MRSA Survivors Network, the Chicago-based nonprofit and the official organization that launched World MRSA Day earlier this year is building momentum in the US, the UK and worldwide in its humanitarian grass-roots effort to raise awareness of the MRSA epidemic.

Oregon House Passes Preemptive Health Reform Bills
The Oregon House of Representatives passed two health reform bills that a leading Democratic lawmakers says will help Oregon "fit into whatever happens on the national scale," the Portland Oregonian reports. One bill would tax insurers and hospitals more than $300 million over two years to provide coverage to an additional 115,000 Oregonians. These funds would "leverage nearly $1 billion in federal Medicaid matching money." The second measure would create an Oregon Health Authority to replace an existing Department of Human Services, but with a broader mandate to track health care claims data and harness consolidated purchasing power to "pressure insurers and hospitals to use evidence based care." State officials say the measure "would create an estimated 3,600 high-paying jobs in hospitals, medical clinics and other areas" (Graves, 6/8).
News of the day
A Breakthrough In Gastric Carcinogenesis
Checkpoint with forkhead and ring finger (CHFR) is a mitotic stress checkpoint gene whose promoter is frequently methylated in various kinds of cancer. In gastric cancer, CHFR promoter hypermethylation has been reported to lead to chromosome instability (CIN) and genetic instability is one of the hallmarks of human cancer.
Oncology

Hormone Therapy May Confer More Aggressive Properties To Prostate Tumours

Hormone therapy is often given to patients with advanced prostate cancer. While it is true that the treatment prevents growth of the tumour, it also changes its properties. Some of these changes may result in the tumour becoming more aggressive and more liable to form metastases. This is one of the conclusion of a thesis presented at the Sahlgrenska Academy. Hormone therapy has serious side effects and is therefore used only when the tumour has grown too large to be treated in any other way, or when the tumour has spread and formed metastases. The hormone that is given causes the natural production of male sex hormone to fall, and the tumour stops growing. Pain also usually decreases. "Our results suggest that the tumour properties change following hormone therapy such that the tumours at a later stage can continue to grow and spread in the body. For this reason, it is probably necessary to supplement the hormone therapy in order to compensate for these changes", says pharmacist Karin Jennbacken, author of the thesis. The results show that patients who have been given hormone therapy have higher levels of the proteins that enable the cancer cells to move through the body and attach to other organs. One of these proteins is known as "N-cadherin", and this protein is present in higher levels in patients who have been given hormone therapy. "We don"t have any good treatment alternatives in cases where the tumour returns after hormone therapy, and this means that it is particularly important to study how such tumours are controlled and how they behave. The properties that we have identified may become targets for new anti-metastatic drugs in advanced prostate cancer", says Karin Jennbacken. Elin Lindstrç¶m Claessen University of Gothenburg


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